If you are not into Sci/Fi-Fantasy books or followed the Sad Puppies Saga, the following is pretty much Chinese spoken by a drunken Magyar. You can go ahead and ignore the rest. If you are somewhat interested and want my Reader’s Digest version, go on ahead.
First my credentials: I am not Treufan. My SciFi lot is filled with 2001(book and movie), original Star Trek, the new Star Trek movies and Babylon 5. That’s it. I tried to read Heinlein and bored me. Dresden Files are OK when I have nothing else to read and can get the paperbacks in Amazon for under a buck. I am a fan of Larry Correia’s books which apparently classify under ‘fantasy’ in this Hugo Award and therefore I am a Sad Puppy.
Now, the Social Justice Warriors clique (SJW) could have avoided this whole issue by simply addressing the concerns about why some deserving authors never got nominated, much less won the Hugos by simply saying “Holy shit, we really should look into this” and maybe take all of 10 minutes to see if such concern was right. Now, we know that indeed some decent writers were not considered for apparently purely political reasons: they personally did not fit the official groupthink of the SJW Clique and that was the base of its lack of selection, not the work itself. But even if you do not agree with the person, you are not supposed to judge the book by anything else but its content, period. But instead of maybe changing just a bit and grudgingly accept that “Yes, Mr X is an asshole in RealLife, but damn his book is good” the SJW clique went full stupid: On year one, they laughed at the accusations and dismissed the complainers as brutish, ignorant and jealous individuals. On year two when the Sad Puppies got somewhat organized and managed to squeeze one nomination, they proceeded to crap small bricks but refused to review their practices. On year three, Sad Puppies did the unforgivable: They swept the nominations.
Oh dear gods of the pantheon! You would have thought the Barbarians broke into the Vestal Temple and proceeded to rape the curtains and burn the Virgins. First came the accusations of ballot stuffing which went down in flames when it was pointed out that the rules for nominations were followed to a fault. Then it came the generalized accusations of “gaming the rules” to introduce a “Conservative, all-male heterosexual, redneck, icky” slate which died under quick examination of the slate as it was actually more varied in every concept than previous Hugo nominations. Then it came to be that the works were not true SciFi/Fantasy or did not conform to what SciFi should be, but somebody just pointed out that previously nominated works like If You Were A Dinosaur My Love and the whole cookie went down in crumbs.
But something was puzzling the SJW clique: After all the attacks, the Sad Puppies not only were not cowed, they had the balls of actually laugh at them! How dare they! So they went even stupider attacking individual authors. Larry Correia is an official White Anglo-Saxon Supremacist (I reckon that you will find the Portuguese last name in the Mayflower list), death threats were issued which is funny as hell when Larry is the size of a shoggoth, knocked down cows for fun a-lo-Mongo in his youth and is a firearms instructor with possibly more guns and ammo in his basement than many police forces in rural America…and some urban areas too. They also went after Sarah Hoyt with the same chant, but oops! She is a half Portuguese immigrant..and female.
But what takes the big prize was when the same White Anglo-Saxon Supremacist label was applied to Brad Torgerson, who happens to be married to a black lady for over 20 years and they have a child together. Now that should have killed the accusation right there, but one jackass under the name of Arthur Chu actually tweeted this:
“Shield” is a term the SJWs use to dismiss any racist defense a person may have from an accusation issued by the SJWs just because the accused actually may have friends that are minorities. But in this case Chu applied the term to a married couple and actually wants people to think that in preparation for Sad Puppies 3, Torgerson somehow decided to take a bride of a different race two decades ago. The shark was not only jumped, but rocket packs were used to achieve maximum apogee.
By then, everything went so crazy that even some famous names got in the frackas. George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones) penned a long blog post criticizing (very politely) Sad Puppies, but wouldn’t you know that Larry Correia had the nerve to reply to him (also very politely.) Martin addressed Correia and the masses went wild with joy at their champion. Correia not only replied but fisked Martin to the amazement of the SJW faithfuls who could not believe somebody would dare to look at their god in the eyes and not turn into ash.
After one more post (I think, there was so much crap going around that I can’t keep track) from Martin declaring the death of the Hugos by the hand of the Sad Puppies (Funny shit that happens when you play by the rules they were playing and the outcome is not what the SJWs wanted) the SciFi world seemed to come apart. The initial grumbles of going No Award in all categories (basically saying, nothing is good, vacate this slot) which were dismissed initially are now chanson du guerre by a lot of SJWs. Basically, if we can’t win, nobody wins! And even some are demanding that the Hugos be cancelled this year and any year when non-SJW-approved works are in the slate. Sunshine, let me tell you: You proved the Sad Puppies point with neon lights and fireworks. You guys are indeed a very reclusive, extreme prejudiced group of morons who refuse other kids to play in the sandbox called Hugo Awards. You lost.
The Puppies won.
Deal with it.
I love sci-fi. I hate the Hugo Awards. I hate awards for the arts in general. That have all become a bacchanalia for elites, standing around in front of adoring crowds jerking each other off for how special they are. If you are not part of the clique, you are never going to win. If you are part of the clique, you will win eventually no matter how undeserving you are.
Major awards for the arts, and the Nobel Prize for Economics, Literature, and Peace are as meaningless as 3rd grade participation trophies. Just with a bigger budget. I wouldn’t be sad if they all got canceled.
I like Larry Correia, and honestly, if he never won a Hugo, it wouldn’t make a difference, because his sales on Amazon dwarf those of the in-clique Hugo winners. That’s all that should really matter.
I admit, I lost you on most of this, but if you’re up for some entertaining commentary on SJW’s, check out InternetAristocrat’s “Tumblrisms” series on YouTube. You’ll either laugh or cry depending on how much faith you have in the human race.
Not only did Sad Puppies play by the rules of the Hugo’s it played by Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. A few illustrations:
RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
Done, and done gloriously.
RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
Other people on the Internet may be snarky, but Corriea has transformed the fisk into a WMD.
RULE 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”
The best prevention of Puppy Related Sadness consists of: Reading good books, telling your friends about them, and encouraging them to read them… And laughing at SJWs. Done.
(Yeah, I loathe his poltics, but I gotta admit that Alinsky was an insightful sumbitch.)
As a participant, I have to admit it was fun!
One of my takes is that the SJW went more ballistic than usual because Sad Puppies did not cower in fear at their attacks. The again, a decent amount of Sad Puppies come from the Gun Rights movement and we have been attacked by real pros with the back up of the Mainstream Media for 30-40 years. To me, the SJWs are a firgging bunch of Pee Wee football players trying to fight an NFL team on equal terms.
The left of today, is as vicious as it was 100 years ago. Only now…they’re cowards.
If you push back, they run away.
This and GamerGate are the first ACTUAL return fire the left has taken in the culture war. They’re losing their fight to disarm us, the consumers of one of the biggest entertainment industries is rejecting them, and they’ve been revealed as just a loud-mouthed minority in science fiction.
They’ve gotten to used to “–ism’ing” and “–ist’ing” their opposition working like a magical spell of silence. They were unprepared for us to stand our ground and hold the line. We haven’t yet started to gain back the ground.
But that’s okay. Rome wasn’t razed in a day.
We have not yet begun to fight.
The funny part is that the SJWs are playing the role of Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow.
Their “magic” doesn’t work anymore.
[…] “The Hugo Awards, Social Justice Warrior and Sad Puppies” – April 16 […]
Ummmm, okay. Alot of people need to leave their parent’s basements (please shower first) and go get a date of their sex of choice (however, with this crowd, I suppose species fits as well).
Holy shit! With all the crap going on in our country this is what we are expending our efforts on?
Well, yes. Freedom of choice and among those pesky things.
Or do you have a mandatory list of approved subjects we are directed to pay attention to?
It’s called “multitasking.” I am entirely capable of being pissed off by multiple things simultaneously.
I wasn’t part of the SP campaign, but I’ve been reading Mr Correia’s MHN blog since SP2 and before I’d ever even read his books, and I don’t even know how long I’ve been reading Ms Hoyt’s AtH blog but I think my first comment there was about Frederik Pohl’s passing in 2013. So I may not have been a part of it but I was very aware of it. All that said, I’m glad the pot has been tipped over and this has happened. The Hugo’s had become a way to see what books not to buy and that was killing SF/F as far as I was concerned. If a book was nominated, and especially if it won, it was most likely garbage to me(YMMV). And had been that way for a long time. And thanks to SP I’ve found some great new stories to read. Which is all I’ve ever asked for or wanted.
And don’t forget they also tried to conflate Gamergate into the Hugos… sigh
Yes, I just could not enumerate all the permutations and left turns that have happened in the last 2-3 weeks.
The curtains were cute, though.
Yes….I don’t attend WorldCon (my list of things to spend $40 on is long, and a Con isn’t even up on page six), so I didn’t vote, but have followed this for a while. Honestly, just based on the behavior of the two sides involved, had I never read a book by either side, I would definitely be picking up a Larry Correia, Sarah Hoyt, and Brad Torgerson book or three.
$40 is the non-attending fee. To attend is $210, explicitly to place it beyond the reach of the dirty masses the attendees love to profess to love, but they’ll be happy to take your $40 if you don’t actually intend to show up.
But buying good books by good authors is appreciated support by the puppies. It makes them less sad.
Perhaps I did a poor job of expressing my thoughts. Please don’t mistake my looking down my nose at this crowd (Nerds!) with trying to limit, restrict or control what other people do with their own time and energy.